With rare exceptions they ardently sympathized with their fellow colonists in their aspirations for liberty, and a very large number of them enlisted in the American army.
The war gave further impetus to Irish immigration for reasons easily divined, and so marked were their numbers in Washington’s forces that at the close of the conflict, in an investigation by the English Parliament into the causes and conduct of the war, it was said by some of the witnesses that the Irish in no small degree contributed to the loss of the colonies by the mother country. When I put it in this form I modify materially the testimony of some of the witnesses who flatly declared that it was the Irish who won the Revolution.
This to me has always appeared to be an exaggerated statement, particularly when I read the roster of the Sons of the Revolution—for either nearly all the Irish were killed in action or died soon after—or possibly there has been some legerdemain in the nomenclature of the survivors. But that there were some Irish in the Revolutionary forces who fought well and died, history has recorded, and American historians have admitted it, but have not chronicled the fact with any wealth of detail or enthusiasm.
As the eighteenth century ended, the Irish began coming hitherward in greater force than had marked the preceding years, and continued coming in increasing volume during the succeeding fifty years, until about 1847, when their numbers grew enormously. From that time on, until 1890, immigration statistics show that about 4,000,000 Irish came to America, which is one of the greatest race movements, if not the greatest in the history of the world.
Up to the beginning of this great exodus from Ireland, with the exception of that period during which the Alien and Sedition laws were passed and repealed, the Irish had grown into the fibre and woof of the nation with slight friction and with little open objection, but when every port of our eastern shore became a haven for ship after ship bringing emigrants from Ireland, the country paused and wondered. But they came and continued to come until wonder turned to anxiety, which was but a step from hostile alarm, and this eventually took shape in the formation of patriotic societies all over the thickly settled parts of the country, for the purpose of having laws passed restricting immigration and the granting of political rights. This situation was further complicated by the great mass of the invaders being unlettered and untrained in the common avocations of life, whether as tillers of the soil, mechanics, or clerks.
As we look back to the events of that period, it is not surprising that the people already here viewed with aversion and fear the presence of this vast army of aliens.
HONORABLE THOMAS F. WALSH.
Of Denver and Washington.
Vice-President of the Society for Colorado.
Copyright, 1909.
By J. Knowles Bishop.
The impossibility of assimilating this large influx of Irish, even if assimilation had been desired, and the possibility of the Irish eventually assimilating their not entirely voluntary hosts were questions that deeply moved men of earnest convictions, but perhaps of limited vision.
Unfortunately, it was just about this epoch that histories of an ambitious and standard character began to be written, and some taking on the passions of the time and the prejudices of the author’s environment, have not given the Irish the place that their services and devotion to the country’s welfare entitled them to hold. It is further to be deplored that full recovery from the bitterness of those days has not been hastened by incidents growing out of political and other conditions.